The Enduring Bond
by NeonGensis
Summary: Cloud, Tifa, and Cid return to the City of the Ancients with a refined Magicite, in order to revive Aeris-- but SHOULD they do it? Also hopefully brings a conclusion to the love triangle between the two girls and Cloud. R/R please!
1. Default Chapter

  
Cloud Strife heaved a great sigh as he mopped the sweat off his face with an already-damp handkerchief. Shielding his bright, sharp blue eyes against the sun that seemed to hang perpetually overhead, he squinted back at his comrades, still carefully making their way over a pebble-strewn hillside a dozen or so meters back. Cid Highwind was using his spear-lance as a makeshift walking stick and was still smoking that damnable dogend of a cigar! Tifa Lockheart, bringing up the rear, looked confident as she strode briskly and eagerly.  
  
Catching Cloud looking at her, she smiled at him. Taken aback, he waved, slowly.  
  
"Whatsamatta, kid?" asked Cid, suddenly right behind him. He had a knowing grin on his face, but Cloud paid it no mind, as usual. "Got lead in your pants? Or something else, eh?"  
  
The grizzled pilot paused next to the spike-haired blonde and looked back at Tifa. She looked as though she had barely broken a sweat. He smiled at her.  
  
This time it was her turn to look taken aback. Turning her nose distastefully in the air, she sniffed at him.  
  
The leathery-faced man grinned even more broadly at this, then nudged Cloud with the haft of his spear-lance. "Don't know what you see in her, lad. Not exactly the most girlish girl, that one, but maybe you like the strong-willed ones, eh?" With a deep chuckle, Cid wiped his face on his blue denim jacket, which already had dark wet pockets of sweat underneath each armpit. "Keep it moving, blondie. This sun's doing a number on my pores."  
  
Without a word, Cloud turned and continued, his heavy SOLDIER boots grinding brittle shells to dust underfoot. Cid muttered under his breath, softly enough so that only Cloud's heightened senses could hear it; trying to get a rise out of the boyo was like slandering a wall. Ultimately pointless.  
  
Cloud marched on, silently, his jaw set determinedly but not angrily. In his gauntleted hands, he cradled a black silk bag.  
  
"What I don't get," Tifa called, while leaping frown from what appeared to be an oddly shaped exposed tree root, "is two things." She frowned to herself as she noticed that she hadn't seen any trees whatsoever in this barren land before, and nearly screamed when she turned around to look again. Before her, rising high out of the dusty ground was a mammoth-sized rib bone long ago bleached in the relentless sun. She did not want to consider what kind of animal would be so monstrous to have a rib like that.  
  
"What was that?" Cid called back.  
  
"I want to know two things," Tifa replied. "First, what are all these stupid fish things doing here? Yuck!" She kicked aside a fossilized fish head the size of a melon.  
  
"Beats me," Cid shrugged. "What's the second?"  
  
"What are we doing here?"  
  
The trio walked out into what finally looked like a clearing. In the center of the forest of spires of bones was an oddly beautiful house, bleached white from sunlight. It looked like it was made from a giant spiraling sea conch and massive driftwood, with odd jutting spikes protruding randomly from it.  
  
Tifa's gaze drifted upwards, speechless.  
  
"Long ago," said Cloud, startling everyone, "the world was flooded. Sea creatures flourished where once was land." His hand rested on the hilt of his huge Ultima sword, ready to draw, as he confidently stepped inside the house. The interior was a conch, if there was any doubt left. It spiraled up and down, lit by blue mysterious lights. Tifa and Cid followed him in warily.  
  
"When the waters of the great flood finally receded, eons later, it stranded the fish here, in this valley, even this far inland. This is what remained." Cloud came across a trapdoor in the floor and lifted it, throwing up clouds of dust into the air. Tiny motes drifted around them. Stairs disappeared into darkness underneath the trapdoor. Cloud peered down into the looming dark, not looking at Tifa. "Does that answer your first question?"  
  
Although he couldn't see her, she nodded behind him.  
  
"As for your second question," Cloud said, seemingly satisfied, "We're going to use this." He held up the black silk bag, which contained something roughly the size and shape of a brick.  
  
The party went down the steps, which along the way somewhere, transformed into...something else. It was still solid, but it seemed to be made of a delicate crystal with an ephemeral purple-white light glowing from with. All of a sudden, it seemed as though the spiraling stairs were made of this light, ready to vanish in a heartbeat. There was no light, besides the steps they walked upon, but they could still see as clear as day. The air above and around them shimmered and refracted, as though they were underwater. The staircase spiraled on....   
  
"Where did you learn all of that?" Tifa asked, her voice echoing eerily back to her.  
  
"The abandoned Shin-Ra mansion, back in Nibelheim," Cloud said.  
  
Cid nodded, comprehending. He had seen the great library underneath the sprawling haunted mansion back in Cloud's and Tifa's hometown. Filled with more books than he had seen in his life, it must have held secrets beyond their imagination. Could this staircase be leading them to the same?   
  
No, they had been here before. And as the great city suddenly loomed before them below, recognition dawned on all their faces slowly, except on Cloud's, who seemed to expect all of this.   
  
"Holy mother," Cid said simply. His jaw hung, and the cigar dropped to the floor.  



	2. Chapter 2

The City of the Ancients was not very large, although it certainly was awe-inspiring. Glass panels, like insects' wings, vaulted high in the air, surrounding a cluster of uninhabited, cylindrical, domed towers. The towers were not very tall, although each displayed craftsmanship unseen for untold ages. In the center was a pagoda, or a temple, which could only be reached by a series of stone pillars, rising out of a deep, tranquil pool of water.  
  
Cloud, Cid, and Tifa walked along the columns in awe.  
  
"This is where...where Aeris died, isn't it?" Tifa asked. "Where Sephiroth killed her?"  
  
Cloud nodded, silently approaching the edge of the pool. He regarded it with his emotionless blue eyes for a moment then began removing the sword secured on his back, and then his gloves and boots. "You asked me two questions before. The answer to that second question, Tifa, is that we are going to revive Aeris Gainsborough."  
  
Cid and Tifa froze, and then Cid laid down his spear-lance beside Cloud's sword.  
  
"Let me help you," he said, removing his Aeronautic jacket. He pointed to the still water surrounding the pagoda. "Who knows how fricking deep it is, or what the hell's in it. Stay here, Tifa. Just in case." Soon his pants dropped to his ankles, and he stood unabashedly in front of her in only a pair of shorts.  
  
Tifa turned to Cloud with pleading eyes. Don't do this, she thought, hoping he could understand her. This isn't necessary, Cloud.  
  
Cloud, stripped to his waist, stared at Tifa silently, then followed the older man into the water.   
  
Tifa watched as their heads submerged under the water, and then sighed. She took their clothes, and one by one folded them into neat little piles.  
  
*****  
  
Cold, ticklish bubbles billowed from Cloud's nostrils and streamed across his bare chest. Squinting through the fresh water, he could make Cid out far below him, kicking and stroking like an awkward frog. Slowly sinking deeper and deeper, darkness enclosed around them. This had to work, or lese he may never see Aeris again.  
  
He got the idea from an ancient text in the Shin-Ra mansion. Materia, the special stones they used to give or supplement their weapons and themselves with magic-like traits, was once called "Magicite." Over the passing of presumably millennia, or even eons, they had become weakened and diluted in power. A level-three Firaga only did a percentage of what a pure Fire Materia could. Supposedly, if you could refine enough materia to its pure magicite form, you could summon its elemental form, like they did with Ramuh and Shiva and the like, except these had far greater powers. Who knew how many Elementals, or Espers, were lost to the world?  
  
The black silk bag, with Tifa now, had a materia shard, the color of a rich aquamarine. Shin-Ra had refined it for him, surprisingly, using a horde of Curaga materia. No one, not even Shin-Ra's libraries, knew how to summon these Espers, but he had to try!  
  
He swam deeper, his lungs burning for air. Soon, Cloud saw Cid, hovering over some inert mass, calling up to him. As he drew closer, the mass resolved into Aeris, her limp body perfectly preserved, her startling blue eyes wide and staring at him. As one, they took an arm each, and pushed off the floor, legs kicking furiously as they brought her shell of a body back to the surface.  
  
As Cloud broke through the water, he thought he spotted Tifa in the tiny temple, praying on her knees. She got up and ran to the edge of the stone island as they swam to her, but Cloud recognized the position she was in; it was the same as Aeris', just before she had been killed. A chill ran through him.   



	3. Chapter 3

It did not take Tifa long to start a fire with a Fira Materia, as Cid and Cloud changed to dry clothes. Aeris, in her long pink dress and red jacket, leaned against a pillar of the pagoda, like a doll playing at sleep. Tifa had been watching her from the corners of her eyes. Tifa looked at Aeris sadly, for she had been a comrade, and warily, for she had also loved Cloud. It was a precarious and conflicting balance of emotions. It maddened her.  
  
"So what's next?" she asked, voice trembling slightly.  
  
Cloud, who had been turning the Magicite shard over and over in his hands, shrugged. Cid remained silent.  
  
Tifa hesitated, then said, "This is wrong, Cloud." She rose from her spot and kneeled beside him. "I've been thinking about this. Aeris' time is passed. She's dea--"  
  
"NO!" Cloud bellowed, his voice cutting through the silence like a knife. He blinked, looking startled at himself.  
  
Tifa winced, threw her arms up to protect her. When no blows landed on her, she opened her eyes, and regarded him warily. Cloud was still seated, his ankles crossed, but his hands were clenched. He no longer had the magicite in his hands; Tifa noticed he had thrown it so it landed right in front of Aeris.  
  
"No," he began again, more slowly. His hands were still balled up into fists. "We have to do this. We have to try! We owe it to her! How could we not, after all she's done for us-- done for the world?"  
  
"Cloud," Tifa said. Her fingers were intertwined, held up before her face in a pleading gesture. "Cloud, this is wrong. I want to see Aeris again, too. But this is wrong.  
  
"She's dead, Cloud." A tear rolled down her left cheek, followed by another. "You shouldn't do this."  
  
Cloud stared blankly at her, not believing his ears. "Tifa, what are you saying? What do you mean I shouldn't do this?" He gripped his head in his hands, and doubled over. His brow furrowed into an anguished look, his jaw working in a soundless wail. "Tifa, how could you say such a thing? Don't you care about Aeris?"  
  
"Cloud-- Are you okay?" Tifa rose slightly from her crouch, and reached her hand out to him. Cid shot his arm out, pressed her back. Tifa spun on the older man, anger flashing in her eyes, but suddenly disappearing when she saw him give a slight shake of the head.  
  
She looked down, and noticed his gloved hand tensing around the haft of his spear-lance. Was he serious? Cloud couldn't be driven to that. Could he?  
  
He had been possessed before.... There were times that Cloud wasn't entirely himself. Tifa clenched her hands into fists, feeling helpless.  
  
"How can you say that, Tifa? Answer me!" Cloud erupted at last, his spittle flying, his face contorted in rage.  
  
"Calm down, boy," Cid warned in a level voice.  
  
Cloud's eyes rested on him. A low growl started in the deep of his throat, and became a deep bass rumble. His own hands started to curl around the bandaged hilt of his sword. Barely exerting an effort, he unsheathed his Ultima blade and brought it up into an offensive stance. As blade scraped against scabbard, a distinct ring of metal hung in the air.  
  
Cid pushed Tifa away and leveled his spear-lance with the Ultima blade. "He's gone. Pushed over the freaking, blasted edge." He took a moment to glare at her and bark an order. "Wake up, girl! You know what to do!"  
  
Tifa jerked, as though awoken from a dream. She nodded at him although he was no longer watching. Cloud took advantage of the opportunity; a moment's distraction was all he needed.  
  
The two men leapt at each other as one, their weapons swinging simultaneously as though choreographed. Sparks jumped as blade met steel haft. Cloud pushed Cid away with a wordless snarl, and then stepped in with a thrust. Cid twisted his wrist, deflecting the heavy blade easily.  
  
"Now, Tifa! NOW!" he screamed, never daring to remove his eyes from Cloud.  
  
SILENCE, Tifa screamed at the top of her lungs.   
  



	4. Chapter 4

There was a brief burst of blinding light, and a burst of silence. It was disorienting if you weren't used to it. For a sliver of a second, there was no sound at all to be heard around them. The spell was enough to make Cloud stumble, make his swing slice the empty air. He shook his head as though trying to clear cobwebs from within then looked at her with utter hate filling his eyes.  
  
Tifa nodded in satisfaction. Though he was far from not being a threat anymore, the spells he could call on Tifa and Cid were several times more dangerous than anything he could do with his Ultima sword. She raised her hands, fingers interwoven, just as Cloud raised his weapon and charged, not at Cid, but at her.  
  
SLOW, she yelled, and then, CONFUSE!  
  
Tifa touched the smooth materia stones that were studded into her gloves. They flared to life, as if lit by some internal yellow lights from within. She pointed towards Cloud, and suddenly the same light surrounded him.  
  
There was a burst in the air, a huge muffled explosion like thunder all around them. Cloud was flung backwards, as though hit by some unseen force, and he hit the floor hard. Tifa winced at the hollow crack his head had made when he hit stone. His sword clanged to the ground and skidded to a stop some distance away. Cid clamped his boot over the sword's handle and glared at the disoriented youth.  
  
Cloud was on his hands and knees, blinking as his head kept swaying around, dizzily. "Tifa? Cid!" His voice was slurred as though he were drunk. As he fought to maintain his balance even in a kneeling position, his limbs became tangled with each other. He fell on the side of his face, and began to cough and sputter uncontrollably.  
  
Tifa and Cid exhaled slowly. As the adrenaline left their bodies, they were suddenly hit with an incredible weariness. Tifa slumped her shoulders slightly as Cid leaned back, using his spear-lance as prop support.  
  
ESUNA, Tifa cast, relieved.   
  
A circle of white light, brighter than the midday sun, opened underneath where Cloud lay on the floor and surrounded him. For a brief moment, Tifa thought she saw the world reverse colors, and then it was gone. Cloud blinked and righted himself up. He alternated giving questioning looks to Tifa and Cid.  
  
"What happened?" he asked. He shook his head, groggily. "Why are you looking at me like that?"  
  
Cid walked over to him, and extended a gloved hand to help him up. "It's a long story, boyo. And by the way, you're taking first shift tonight over the camp, until we figure out what to do with Aeris." He peered over his shoulder at Tifa and winked, then mouthed to her, "I coulda kicked his ass, if I wanted to."  
  
Tifa grinned at Cid, then smiled warmly at Cloud.  
  
  
Later that evening, Cloud sat on the cold stone floor, his back against one of the stone pillars that supported the roofless pagoda structure. His giant sheathed sword leaned on the coarse-grained tapered pillar; he wrapped his arm around it like a source of comfort and rested his head against the cracked leather scabbard. He should have been sleeping by now, for his watch over the encampment had ended nearly an hour ago.  
  
However, he was still shaken by what Tifa and Cid had told him he did. Did I really do such things?, he wondered.  
  
Cid, who had taken the second shift, was far above, in the conch-shaped building on the ground level. The second shift was always hardest, as it cut your sleeping time in two. Cloud smiled thinly as he imagined the gruff man puffing away on a cigar (it would be a new one, at least), cursing where Tifa and he wouldn't be disturbed. Aeris always did disapprove of his swearing.  
  
The smile on Cloud's face slowly disappeared.  
  
Aeris.  
  
Tifa.  
  
Cloud's eyes flickered to Tifa's still form, bundled up in a blanket, curled up like a fetus. She had moved very little throughout the night, but always had her back towards him. Casually, he wondered if she was still frightened of him.  



	5. Chapter 5

"Tifa," he said, softly, barely more than a whisper. His eyes fell downwards, to his lap. "I don't know if you're awake or not. I just wanted to tell you how very sorry I am.  
  
"I know the rage takes me sometimes, and I cannot control it. It is something that's a part of me, though I don't know where it came from or why it chose me. Perhaps it's a remnant of when Sephiroth invaded my mind.  
  
"I only want that you could forgive me. I will never forgive myself. I could very well have killed you and Cid. If any harm were brought upon you, I would have been distraught with fear and concern. The fact that it could have been by my own hand terrifies me."  
  
Slowly he looked up. Tifa's glistening brown eyes stared back at him, her head laying on her hands. He had not even heard her turn over.  
  
"You are forgiven, Cloud." She smiled at him weakly for a moment, but then the corners of her mouth wilted and drooped so that her face, like his, was expressionless. "I know you would not hurt me deliberately so. We still don't know what possesses you; you are the one not in control. All is forgiven."  
  
Cloud shook his head. "It is as you say; I am not in control sometimes. But that shouldn't excuse me from...."  
  
"Cloud," Tifa said sternly. He looked up at her. "I love you. All is forgiven."  
  
Cloud nodded this time, and let the matter drop. He turned his head over to Aeris' body, laid out on her back across the stone pagoda's floor some distance away from him and Tifa. Her hands were crisscrossed over her breasts, clutching the emerald Magicite shard.  
  
"What do we do about Aeris?"  
  
"We can do nothing about her, Cloud." Tifa's head lifted somewhat to look at the still form. "Neither of us knows how to trigger the power of a Magicite shard. I doubt anyone would; they have been lost to us for well over several thousand years."  
  
Cloud nodded, understanding the wisdom in Tifa's words. He removed his arm from around the Ultima blade's scabbard and went to his feet. "There's nothing we can do about her," he agreed.  
  
After a moment's hesitation, Tifa kicked off her blanket to the side, and rose to her feet as well. "Are we going to return her to the waters of the City of the Ancients?"  
  
"Yes," Cloud said. "It's only fitting that she remain in the home of her ancestors." He took one of Aeris' arms and motioned to Tifa to take the other.   
  
As soon as Tifa's hand wrapped around Aeris' wrist so that both she and Cloud had an arm each, there was an explosion of green light. There was no sound, like lightning without thunder. It filled their eyes, and illuminated the entire room with a ghostly green patina. Green-white energy poured out of Aeris' chest-- no, Cloud though, that wasn't the word for it. It was like water spraying forth from a crack in a dam. It was a torrential current of energy. Slowly, sound came back to their ears, and the energy spewing from Aeris' chest roared all around.  
  
"What is it," Tifa screamed. "Cloud, what's going on?"  
  
"It's Aeris!" Cloud shouted back. "I don't know what it is, though!"  
  
"No," she said, shielding her eyes with her forearm as she pointed. "It's not Aeris... it's the Magicite stone!"  
  
Cloud squinted through the brilliant light, although it was like staring at the midday sun from up close. Then he saw it, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.  
  
The Magicite shard, nestled between Aeris' breasts, was aglow with a furious light. Deep in the center of the glassy shard, like a candle inside a lantern, was a red flame. It flickered and danced, and the green light pulsated in time with its movement.  



	6. Chapter 6

Soon, the red flickering light was all that Cloud could see. It filled his eyes and penetrated his senses. He felt as though he could not tear his eyes from it, even if he wanted to. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, and then evaporated immediately. He could feel the heat of the light consume everything, but he was unburned. Around him, the air crackled and sizzled.  
  
"Tifa," he breathed. "Do you feel it? Or is it just me?"  
  
"No," she replied to him, her voice hushed. "I feel it, too. Oh, it feels wonderful, Cloud. What is it? Are we dying?"  
  
"No. It feels like...love." Cloud smiled, grinned, felt his heart beating rapidly in his heart. He decided he would not care if it decided to explode within his chest. He was exhilarated, jubilant, ecstatic, in rhapsody. "It's Aeris' love! I can feel her love!"  
  
"But why do I feel it too?" came Tifa's quiet question.  
  
The green light came to a crescendo, then flashed a brilliant white, brighter than all the stars in the night sky combined, and turned red. It came in from the corners of his eyes, first, then became deeper. The bright red turned to something more primal...it flushed into crimson, then a deep maroon, then a grisly blood red. Flame red.  
  
Dust on the stone floor stirred and rose in the air and whipped around them. Tifa and Cloud felt like they were caught in a maelstrom. Winds and sand and dust and flame raced around them, spiraled as though caught in a furious force. The two remained in the eye of the storm, the relative calm in the center of the chaos, centered around Aeris. Centered around the magicite stone.  
  
Phoenix, Cloud whispered in awe, though he didn't know where the words came from. It is the Phoenix Esper. In the flames' light, he thought he saw ghostly faces that flickered and died away in the flame.  
  
He saw a young with brown-blonde hair, a coronet pulling her hair away from her face, partially covered by a man in dragoon armor wrapping his cape around her. The two smiled at he and Tifa and vanished. He saw another girl in a flowing white sleeveless dress, her strawberry hair pulled back into a bun. She gave them a warm smile and she, too, disappeared. They saw a girl with deep sea-green hair and red ruby earrings, who smiled at them lovingly and vanished. Names came to Cloud in his head, too, and he knew that Tifa knew their names as well. Terra Branford. Reina Tycoon. Rydia the Caller and Kain the Dragoon.  
  
The red light flickered and winked out as abruptly as it came.   
  
Lights danced before him, and he could see Tifa rubbing at her eyes. "What-- what was that?" he asked.  
  
"Tifa, Cloud. What have you done?" came a familiar feminine voice.  
  
Cloud froze still. He was afraid to look up, fearing that what he heard would not be there.  
  
"It's all right, Cloud," came the warm voice once more. "You shouldn't be afraid of me. You know me."  
  
Very slowly, Cloud looked up, and nearly sobbed aloud in joy, in grief!, when he saw Aeris Gainsborough standing before them. Her long pink dress shimmered faintly and her long, thick braid of chestnut locks stirred slightly as she tilted her head and smiled at him with her warm green eyes.  
  
"What are you doing here, Cloud?" Aeris looked down at him with loving but concerned eyes. "Tifa, why are you here too?"  
  
Cloud blinked, and stopped in his tracks. That was not what he expected to hear. "Don't you want to see us?" he asked her. "Don't you want to be among us? Here? Living?"  
  
"That's not it, Cloud," Tifa said, somewhere off to the side. He couldn't pull his eyes away from Aeris, for fear that she just might disappear once again.   
  
Aeris nodded slightly, the smile on her lips never fading. "She understands the truth of it, Cloud. My time here on earth has passed. It was...wonderful while it lasted, when I was with all of you. I miss you all so very much.  
  
"However," she continued, "As treasured as that time was with you, it's finished. I cannot ignore my role in the Life Stream of the world. I'm a part of something so much greater now, Cloud. I'm back with the Ancients. With my kind again."  
  
She leaned down to Cloud, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. He shivered involuntarily; it felt ice cold and tingled slightly where she touched his cheek. "I'm home, now," she said softly, before withdrawing her head.  
  
Aeris looked around the room, and walked over so that she now stood before Tifa. She crossed her arms behind her back and smiled at her. "Where are the others now? How are they all doing?"  
  
Tifa looked at Aeris with astonished, wet eyes then threw her arms around her. Where her skin touched Aeris, it felt cold and coursed with a vibrant energy.   
  
"Oh, Aeris," Tifa whispered in her ear, between soft sobs. "I've missed you so. I'm so sorry... so sorry.... I've thought awful things about you, but I never really meant any of...." Her voice cracked in sobs.  
  
Aeris continued smiling in her own knowing way, and patted Tifa on the back in an embrace. The glowing aura around her now surrounded Tifa as well. "Shhh. We're together now. We don't have much time. I forgave you a long time ago."  
  
Tifa forced herself to pull away from her. Tears streamed down her face, as she sniffled and looked at her shimmering friend. "You... have?"  
  
Aeris nodded. "Yes. How could I not? You're my friend, Tifa."  
  
Tifa smiled, and wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist. "Thank you," she mouthed, but her voice was nowhere to be found.  
  
Aeris nodded. "Now please, tell me about the others."  
  
It came out in a rush then. Tifa and Cloud alternated telling her the stories and the adventures they've had after defeating Sephiroth finally....  
  
Cid was upstairs, keeping watch. He was as foul-mouthed as ever, but he had a fierce determination in his eyes now. Having finally reached the upper limits of the atmosphere, he was now convinced that it was possible for people to Ilive/I in space. Aeris giggled at that one, as did Tifa....  
  
Barret now lived in Midgar, with Aeris' adopted mother, and his daughter. He was content being a construction worker, rebuilding Midgar from its roots up. Cloud told Aeris how he now tended a garden in the little church where Cloud had first met her, so that his daughter would always have a little patch of the green earth for herself....  
  
Yuffie was now a very much-wanted criminal in five major cities, with a bounty of 1 million Gil in each of them on her head. Supposedly, someone had been robbing all the materia shops of their high-end stones.... And with all that materia on her, it was increasingly becoming impossible to stop the crazed ninja girl....  
  
Red XIII now roamed the prairie lands as chief of his tribe, protecting his home for all of his people, most of all his two young cubs. They were vivacious pups who loved to pounce and snarl and bite, although it was quite comical to watch them….  
  
Cait Sith was now an attraction in the Golden Saucer Amusement house. He handed balloons out to the little boys and girls, and sometimes stunned the crowds with its ability to talk and its acrobatics. Aeris told them that she would have liked to see that one just once, and that she was happy for him.....  
  
Vincent was now a bounty hunter, chasing after a certain crazed ninja girl. Finally having accepted the fate of his departed wife, he now strode with new purpose to catch the infamous cat burglar. He traveled from city to city, on her trail, accompanied by a young blonde assistant who always looked at him with sparkling hopeful eyes whenever he called out her name....  
  
When they finished telling Aeris all that had happened, she was smiling, nodding to herself. "How splendid," she said, when she opened her eyes again. "Life... what a splendid thing it is."  
  
She turned her back on Cloud and Tifa, and took a few steps away from them. With each step, she seemed to float a little bit higher off the ground. She turned and faced them once more, and Cloud wondered how she was able to hover from the ground.  
  



	7. Chapter 7

Tifa and Cloud looked up into her eyes. They were stll a vibrant emerald green, and in the glow of the brlliant aura around her, they shone like polished gemstones. Cloud took a second look and realized that they were moist with tears, despite her overjoyed expression. Her hands clasped together in prayer before her face.  
  
For the second time that night, Cloud recognized the position. It was the same that Tifa had done earlier, the same that Aeris had done just before she was killed by Sephiroth. Before she was taken away from him. He realized that she was slowly straining against some mysterious unseen force that gently but surely pulled her further from the ground. She was starting to shimmer too, so that he could see right through her.  
  
"You have to go," Cloud said, "Don't you?" His tone made it clear that it was not really a question.  
  
Aeris nodded, and smiled in her mysterious knowing way.  
  
"But why?" Tifa had a startled look in her eyes. "Aeris, I was so sure I never wanted to see you again, for you loved Cloud. But... now that you're here, I don't know what we'd ever done without you!"  
  
She turned and looked at the softly glimmering stairs that spiralled up and beyond, into the darkness far above the City of the Ancients. "Cid! At least go see Cid! He came all this way, too! I'll go get him! Just wait! Aeris, you don't have to go! You mustn't!"  
  
Cloud ran for her, and grabbed her wrist before she could take more than a couple of steps. He held her close, and she struggled for a moment before she gave up and sobbed onto his shoulder. "You mustn't, Tifa," he said to her softly, reassuringly. "She won't have long. You mustn't."  
  
"Cloud, let go of me! Let-- !"  
  
"Tifa, please," Aeris said. Tifa froze and looked up at her. She was almost gone, now. The aura of light around her strained and shimmered weakly. "Now it is Cloud's turn to finally understand."  
  
"Understand?" Tifa looked up, panicked, into Cloud's ever-serene face. "What do you mean?"  
  
Aeris smiled. "I am dead. You are alive. So live."  
  
Tifa blinked, uncomprehending.  
  
"All living things have their time, here in the world you know. But afterwards... they break down and their life force... their essence becomes rejoined with the LifeStream. When your time comes to pass, then we can all be together. You. Cloud. Cid. Barret. Vincent. Yuffie. Even Cait Sith. And me.  
  
"You still have so much time left, dear friend," Aeris said in a pleading voice. She was almost completely gone now; her voice was hollow and faint and all that remained of her was a shadowy dismembered head. "Please, use that time with those you love most. I will always love you for looking back on me from time to time with kind thoughts.... But, like waters parted before a rock, we shall be joined again...."  
  
And with that, she vanished in the air, and all became dark once more around Tifa, still in Cloud's arms.  
  
Cid grumbled to himself. His arms were crossed across his barrel of a chest, and he gnashed his teeth on all that remained of a cigar stub. "So why the hell did no one freaking call me?"  
  
Tifa giggled behind her hand. "I'm sorry, Cid. I really am. I was going to, but there was no time."  
  
Cid looked over to Cloud, who also had his arms crossed over his chest, but the lad's face betrayed little emotion, if any. As usual. "And the stone? Her body? What did you do with them?"  
  
Cloud jerked his head to the still waters surrounding the pagoda. "They're together. Deep down there. They sort of belong together, if you ask me."  
  
Cid sighed, and scratched his scalp on the back of his head. "To hell with it, then." He stood up from his cross-legged position on the stone floor, then paused. "She say anything to me? A message or something?"  
  
Tifa froze. Now that she thought about it, Aeris hadn't left a message for him. Not even a hello. Did she? She couldn't remember. She opened her mouth to say no, but Cloud cut her off.  
  
"She said, she'll meet us again. Sometime." Cloud looked over at Tifa, who was working her jaw furiously. "Isn't that right?" Then he smiled.  
  
Tifa's face relaxed into a smile. "Of course," she said. "That's absolutely right." She turned to Cid, who arched an eyebrow at the two of them dubiously. "Should we get going then? I don't think there's anything left for us here."  
  
Cloud nodded his agreement, as did Cid. "May as well," said the grizzled pilot. "The freaking blimp's been wandering aimlessly for two days now, above us. The crew must be going nuts." He grinned at the thought, then nodded his agreement once more to her.  
  
Tifa held up her left hand, her glove studded with Materia stones.  
  
WARP!, she cried out.  
  
A yellow stone on her glove flashed brilliantly with a light that surrounded them all, and in the blink of an eye, they were gone. The only evidence that remained, that anyone was there at all, was a long, thin silk ribbon, the kind that you tied your hair back with. It was a light pink hue, the color of a cherry blossom flower in full bloom.  
  
THE END 


End file.
